Gennady Padalka

Photo: NASA

_Gennady Ivanovich Padalka, a Colonel in the Russian Air Force, was born on June, 21, 1958 in Krasnodar, Russia. He
graduated from Eisk Military Aviation College in 1979 and became an
engineer ecologist at the UNESCO International Center of Instruction
System which he left in 1994. Padalka served as a senior pilot in the
Russian Air Force after graduating from Military College. Gennady
Padalka is a First Class Pilot who has logged 1,500 hours on six
different aircraft.

_In addition to that, he is an Instructor of General Parachute Training with more than 300 parachute jumps under his belt. In 1989, he was selected as a Cosmonaut Candidate and started basic training and evaluation at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center that he completed two years later. Padalka became a test cosmonaut in 1991.In 1996 and 97, he trained for Missions with the Soyuz-TM transport vehicle and Mir Space Station as commander of the backup crew for Expedition 24 on Mir. Later, his training transitioned and he became a prime crewmember of the Expedition 26 Program. This portion of training had a duration of one more year and concluded in 1998 when he launched with Sergei Avdeyev aboard Soyuz TM-28 to become the crew of Mir Expedition 26, whose primary mission was to make repairs to life support systems and prepare the station for deorbit. Padalka logged 198 days in space on that mission. After the Flight, he started training as an International Space Station Emergency Crew Commander from 1999 to 2000. Padalka trained to be the backup Commander of ISS Expedition for before being assigned to the prime crew of Expedition 9 in March 2002. The Flight began on April 21, 2004. During his 6-month mission, Padalka continued ISS Science Operations that were started during previous missions and supported ISS Assembly and Maintenance. He conducted four spacewalks. His mission as Expedition 9 Commander earned him another 187 days and 21 hours in space and nearly 16 hours of spacewalking time. After returning to Earth and recovering from the mission, he resumed training for his next Mission to the Space Station. Gennady Padalka returned to ISS in 2009 for six more months aboard the complex. He served as Flight Engineer on Expedition 19 and Commander on Expedition 20 – the first ISS Increment with a crew of six. During the Flight, he completed his 7th and 8th spacewalk – the 8th of his EVAs was an internal EVA lasting just 12 Minutes to move docking equipment inside a module that had to be depressurized. On October 11, 2009, the Crew returned to Earth. In 2010 it was announced that Padalka would return to the Space Station a third time to serve as a member of the Expedition 31/32 crew – commanding increment 32. Before Expedition 31/32, Padalka had logged 585 Days, 6 Hours and 30 Minutes in Space ranking sixth for career time in space and being the second most experienced active space flier at the current time. In total, he has completed 27 Hours and 15 Minutes of EVA time on 8 space flights.Padalka is married to Irina Anatolievna Ponomareva. They have three daughters, Yulia, Ekatarina and Sonya. In his free time, he enjoys the theater, parachute sport and diving.

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